When I was doing my graduate work at
Notre Dame, faculty and university officials often stressed the significance of
Catholic social teaching, particularly the preferential option for the poor.
Back at the university to give a lecture at the Kroc Institute for
International Peace Studies, I was surprised to discover that President George
W. Bush had been invited to be the 2001 Commencement speaker.

Following the Supreme Courts dubious decision to hand the
election to Bush, a party of affluent Notre Dame alumni (which included local
Democratic Congressman Tim Roemer) hurried down to Texas to kiss Caesars
hem and to extend the invitation.

The invitation was accepted. President Bush is to address the May
20 commencement and receive an honorary doctorate of laws from the
university.

Government professor Peter Walshe, who throughout the 1980s
confronted the university on its continued investment in apartheid South
Africa, decided not to keep quiet. He is spearheading a campaign to expose this
initiative as indicative of the universitys drift away from its Catholic
mission. Together with a few other faculty members, he drafted a petition,
which is now posted on the Web for faculty, students, staff and alumni to sign
at http://www.petitiononline.com/ndbush/petition.html

In the petition, the faculty members relay their anger with the
invitation extended by Holy Cross Fr. Edward A. Malloy, Notre Dame president.
Bush administration policies, the petition states, will give a huge tax
refund to the rich, cut by 86 percent programs that provide health care access
for the uninsured, abandon the environment -- both nationally and globally --
to the predatory drive for corporate profits, and promote another arms race
with its Strategic Defense Initiative, and contradict Notre Dames mission
as a Catholic university. Furthermore, Fr. Malloys invitation demeans
Notre Dame, coming as the Bush administration pursues its ruthless agenda in
the immediate aftermath of a deceitful campaign that promised
compassionate conservatism. 

The petition concludes with its insistence that all future
invitations to address the commencement ceremony will be determined in
consultation with the faculty. What faculty members are trying to do is to take
back some of the power that has been divested from them by the administration,
so that they can influence the decision-making process at Notre Dame and
redirect the universitys agenda back to issues pertaining to social
justice. They are not interested in the administrations incessant
attempts to emulate the Ivy League.

So far only a few faculty members have signed the petition.
Symptomatically, the response from the Department of Government has been
woeful. While George W. Bush has fans in the department, the pervasive lack of
support epitomizes the cautious careerism of the professorate characterizing
many universities in the United States. In contrast, a number of years ago, at
Ben-Gurion University in Israel, where I teach, vocal faculty protest
frustrated an attempt to confer an honorary doctorate on Ariel Sharon.

At this moment, however, attention should focus on labor activist
Msgr. George Higgins. At the May 20 commencement, he will be honored for his
contribution to trade unionism as the recipient of Notre Dames Laetare
Medal. Higgins will be on the dais with the president as the laudatory citation
for Bush is read. In this setting, Higgins unwittingly becomes the fig leaf for
Notre Dames decision to honor a president who is implementing policies
that are in stark opposition to Catholic social teaching. Before Higgins
attends the commencement, I hope he will ask himself one simple question: What
would Jesus have him do?

Although not a Christian myself, it seems to me that at least one
issue is blatantly clear in the New Testament: Jesus economic teachings.
Higgins should, I believe, refuse Notre Dames invitation to attend the
commencement ceremony.

Neve Gordon received his doctorate in the Department of
Government and International Studies at the University of Notre Dame, and is
currently teaching politics at Ben-Gurion University, Israel. He can be reached
atngordon@bgumail.bgu.ac.il